Drill Press Vise

I've looked at a bunch of Grizzly stuff over the years. They all have one thing in common, they have outstanding paint jobs. Their photos are also high quality. Notice there are *no* specs about parallelism of ways, squareness of fixed jaw, *nothing*. It's a really cheap import POS. Like all such, every tolerance is on a large bell curve. If you happen to get one with a collection of relatively tight tolerances (by random chance) you could mistakenly think that the whole line is high quality.

However, we're talking about a drill press vise. What exactly is wrong with the one from Homo Depo? These go on cheap drill presses with spindles which probably run out 1/32". The quality is entirely consistent.

One thing I would suggest is to *fix* the vise you have. You would learn really a lot and how much is that worth to you?

GWE

Looks like a piece of junk. At least, a DPV should offer x and y adjustment by means of screws.

That vise is really light duty, and, the guide in the center won't allow long pieces to hang through the table.

I was lucky to got a used industrial Wilton Drill Press in a very good shape with very little runout. It's not that I do projects that need extremely high tolerance but it feels good to use good quality tools vs using some flimsy POS that drives you crazy. The Home Depot vise I have is extremely flimsy - every single part rattles with no reliable way to adjust it. I don't think it can be fixed but let me know if you think something can be done. BTW I'am be checking eBay. Hopefully some used quality vise will pop up.

Thanks

Grant Erw>

I have a $46 DPV from harbor freight that is quite nice for the kind of stuff that I do. It is bolted to the base, and can be moved in the x and y direction by screws.

I looked at that link and the "photo" looked more like a 3-D CAD rendering than it does an actual photography.

What is wrong with your HD one? Perhaps you can tune it to be better.

John

Why should it do that?

John Martin

To provide a modicum of precision in locating the workpiece.

-jc-

Locating the workpiece how, John? With a center finder or a dial test indicator? Or an edge finder? Frankly, it's far easier and just as accurate to lay out hole locations with hand measuring tools and a prick punch, then center punch them and drill. Holding the workpiece in a simple drill press vise. Unless you're using a spotting drill or a center drill first, it's in fact more accurate. Even with a spotting drill or a center drill, though, a drill press is not a precision machine tool. Adding an XY vise to one will not make it so.

There certainly are drill presses with XY tables built in, which are extremely accurate. But they're called jig bores, and are in a totally different league.

While there may be some decent XY drill press vises around, those that I've seen have been crap. You're much better off with a solid simple vise.

John Martin

Use of punches and center drills and XY tables is not mutually exclusive. The way I drill holes is, I use a punch or a center drill bit to start, but I use the XY adjustment to move the piece to the right spot.

I had a 17" Jet drill press for a long time which had a 4" cross-slide vise from Grizzly on it. I found that vise to be quite usable and an excellent value for the price. The reason it's useful is that you can clamp the part firmly in the vise and *then* move it until your mark is dead under the drill, then lock the gibs and drill. I found it useful to replace the gib screws with thumbscrews since without locking the gibs I always got chatter. I did some good work with that setup. I later bought a 5" cross-slide vise from J&L which was a real POS, returned it right away.

So I agree with you. Some cross-slide vises are much better than others, also drill presses are not ultraprecision machines.

GWE